Closed beta has begun

Has anyone tried making a control deck without minions? One of the things I enjoy about MTG are creatureless decks, but it seems as though every deck in HS relies heavily on minions. It also seems like card advantage and being able to trade efficiently are some of the most important things to consider when deck building.

Minions in Hearthstone are very different than in Magic, since they are functionally all removal due to how creature combat works. Trading and board presence are going to be very important in general, so creatureless decks are going to be difficult to build.

Board wipes come in many flavors (Brawl, Flamestrike, Lightning Storm, etc.), and they are pretty powerful.

My problem with Hearthstone is very simple, and it's a part of virtually every game. Players are slow and indecisive, and rounds take far too long. A 24-second shot clock or some realistically brief window of time needs to be implemented for each turn, because right now being beaten over and over again by people who spend more than 45 seconds on a turn with two cards in their hand is enraging to an unhealthy degree. At the very least, a "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" emote should be added to each of the champions, so that their speech can mirror my own.

It is annoying that people dick around without doing anything until the rope shows up, but that's prevalent in all games. I like to think that because people are new they're taking time reading their cards, and if they're new to CCGs, planning out their turn. It should get better as the game progresses and/or you get matched with higher level opponents (in constructed deck)

I do find it a little annoying that the Victory/Defeat window pops up so quickly, so I can't hit "Well Played" after I win/lose. I sort of have to telegraph winning or losing in order to exchange pleasantries.

Board wipes come in many flavors (Brawl, Flamestrike, Lightning Storm, etc.), and they are pretty powerful.

My problem with Hearthstone is very simple, and it's a part of virtually every game. Players are slow and indecisive, and rounds take far too long. A 24-second shot clock or some realistically brief window of time needs to be implemented for each turn, because right now being beaten over and over again by people who spend more than 45 seconds on a turn with two cards in their hand is enraging to an unhealthy degree. At the very least, a "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" emote should be added to each of the champions, so that their speech can mirror my own.

I would actually like to see this go both ways - on the one hand, I'd like to see things like Arena/Ranked play (with random opponents) held to a shorter turn time limit, but on the other hand, I think having a longer/indefinite/push-based turn system for unranked play with friends, especially for the future iOS version, would be a huge boon for drawing people into the ecosystem.

Frankly I don't know how you non-Nordic people can breed in good conscience.

I would actually like to see this go both ways - on the one hand, I'd like to see things like Arena/Ranked play (with random opponents) held to a shorter turn time limit, but on the other hand, I think having a longer/indefinite/push-based turn system for unranked play with friends, especially for the future iOS version, would be a huge boon for drawing people into the ecosystem.

Yesterday I had a game as Anduin in which I played the Lightspawn, which was covered with previously placed taunt minions. My opponent cleared the Taunt minion but couldn't hit the Lightspawn, and on the following turn I used Power Word: Shield followed by two Divine Spirits to make it 28/28, and I took my opponent from 30 health to 2 in a single attack.

My opponent's response was to not perform any actions until the fuse had burned all the way across the board, then to play a non-taunt minion. That's some trollish crap, and there need to be preventative measures of some sort. Whether that's a hurry-up button or shorter base turn durations, I don't know.

I kind of like the timer where it's at. Maybe cut it 5-10 seconds? I don't often use that much time, but there are definitely some turns where I need to math out a few things since I can't do that so quickly in my head. Sure it's silly when you do your turn in five seconds while your opponent takes 75% of the duration, but that's going to happen in any CCG.

Amusingly since they've been willing to mess with the game rules on minions before, having a cheap stealth minion with Nozdormu's ability would be pretty funny.

Edit: Kind of curious how damage is working. It's still true that if your max HP lowers, it doesn't lower your current HP correct, unless it becomes lower than it was? That seems to happen most of the time, but I've had a couple of instances, probably bugs, where the dropping the max HP killed my creature with damage on it. My favorite though was a hunter using Hunter's Mark on a creature that was damaged down to x/1 already, then using Arcane Shot on it. The creature didn't die, and when Mark wore off it gained two health.

Edit: Kind of curious how damage is working. It's still true that if your max HP lowers, it doesn't lower your current HP correct, unless it becomes lower than it was? That seems to happen most of the time, but I've had a couple of instances, probably bugs, where the dropping the max HP killed my creature with damage on it.

I lost a game earlier today because killing a Stormwind Champion didn't drop the other buffed minion from 3/2 to 2/1 so I could kill it - it became a 2/2 instead. Currently abilities that add health add both potential and current health, while removing a buff like Stormwind Champion's does not remove current health unless it's higher than the minion's potential without the buff. At least, that's how I've seen it operate - with occasional exceptions that are probably bugs. There was a thread on the official forums talking about this health/buff interaction. They've changed how it works multiple times, and however they implement it there's confusion from some of the players. It's hard to say which I prefer, but this is definitely more confusing to me. I think health buffs should act like attack buffs - once the source of the buff disappears, so does the buff.

I had another odd bug (a least, I feel it's a bug) that probably cost me a loss in Arena. I had a Sword of Justice out along with a couple of minions. My opponent played Hex on each of my minions. There were two separate bugs:- The frogs were instantly targeted and buffed by my Sword of Justice, removing durability from the sword even though *I* hadn't summoned them. - For the duration of the SoJ animation, both the frog and the minion that had been hexed were on the board, as if my minion had been cloned right before being hexed. It was long enough to make me wonder if that was what happened. Kind of distracting. Losing four charges from my SoJ for two 1/2 minions was more than distracting.

I had a similar health buff bug happen to me playing against a priest with power word shield. My opponent had a 3/1 minion buffed to 3/4, I did 4 damage and brought it down to 0 health, and then next turn it was 3/3.